Chance & Hazards, Chapter One
by KatSol
Summary: Even elite rescue specialists get pushed to the limits of their endurance; so how do they keep going?
1. Chapter 1

Chance & Hazards

Chapter One

_Voice Recognition Journal, Record #2070-803, 3/19/70, 02:12 hours_

I'm too tired to sleep. Doesn't make sense, does it? I'm sure there's a few in the world that would understand the dichotomy, and I know there's some in this house that would get it. Honestly, I wish I didn't.

Things were easier five years ago.

I can't get the images out of my head. There's no way to compartmentalize yesterday and with the ready light still on orange, it won't go away no matter how much I drink. We could get another callout to Mexico any minute now, or, it could be days. All I can do is drink this one lousy glass and record here how things have come down so far.

Duck and cover. That's what every school kid's taught, really, and usually before they learn their alphabets. Duck and cover. Nothing else, not even a hint about the strengths and weaknesses of the building they're in, no practical knowledge of potentially safe void sites within the structure, and practically nothing about the hazards of the land they call home. Just duck and cover--

Son of a Bitch!

And that's how Scott and I found them too, all those kids with their outdated textbooks, their crayons, their favorite toys. They had done what they were trained to do, ducked under their termite-bored and salvaged desks, and were crushed to death under the weight of their jerry-rigged schoolroom roof when the quake hit: a 7.9, triggered off the Guerrero Seismic Gap and aimed directly at Mexico City, an artificial Aztec-constructed punchbowl of alluvial soil that amplifies seismic waves faster than I can throw this bottle of Scotch through my plate-glass windows.

I've tried reading, tried listening to music, tried to paint, but I can't get past any of this: the drained faces of the impoverished parents who'd been transported from the Evac Centers to search for their children; the ragged soldiers, doing their best to keep order while they moved debris out of the way so we could land our birds; the sleep-deprived EMT's who'd fought their way through the rubble, the spot fires, and the cadaver-choked streets, waiting by their trucks with guarded hope in their shadowed eyes, gripping the med kits they wouldn't need...

And God, oh God, the little broken bodies, pupils dilated and cloudy, stiffening to rigidity, and most so bereft of food they hadn't even soiled their clothes when the end came. All of them nameless, all of them twisted, all of them gone from this world and those who loved them in one terrifying, ghastly moment of deafening noise and staggering chaos.

I must tell you this, whoever you are who'll be reading this journal after I'm gone. There is no silence as piercing as that of the aftermath of a natural disaster when there are no survivors to save. It lasts but a fraction of a second, a horrific eternity of vacuum, without sound, without breath, without humanity, and its filled with dust and ash and dissipating sweat-drenched fear. Then, it gets worse. After that silence comes the monstrous emotional wave that emanates from vigil-holders and searchers alike, a gut-twisting agonized spiral of shock, despair, shattering denial and irredeemable, irrevocable loss that breaks over your helmet, rips the canvas off your chest, and leaves you choking and wishing you could break apart too and lose yourself in the psychic maelstrom so you can forget what you've seen, forget you didn't get there in time, forget that in the end, you couldn't make a damn bit of difference.

Maybe I can't do this anymore.

Duck and cover...

We have to do better than that. We have to. The world isn't what it was and humanity is losing ground fast, headed to its own self-fulfilled annihilation. We have to do better, we must!

Holy God, I can't believe I wrote this down. Maybe now I can sleep? Should I even try?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

_________________________________________________________________________

_3/20/70, 14:17 hours, Mission 70-41, Day 2_

Alan's brow furrowed over his nose as he pulled his headset aside. "Virg? You okay?"

His older brother shrugged, scanned Thunderbird 2's Head's Up Display, sank deeper into his command chair and pulled his headset mike in closer to his mouth. "Didn't get much sleep last night but I'm good."

"Sure," Alan tossed a glance at his brother Gordon, seated behind them at the navigational station. Gordon silently shook his head and looked away. "Just checking."

Ignoring his brothers but achingly aware of their wordless exchange, Virgil turned his head, stared out the window, cleared his throat and tapped his comm link. "IR Station, T2 Rescue Heavy."

"T2 Rescue Heavy, go."

"Cruise level achieved, vector's locked, auto's engaged. Brief in 15?"

Alan looked upwards at the HUD expecting to see John's image, but Virgil had cut the comm link to voice-only transmission. It wasn't standard protocol, but all things considered, Alan let it slide.

"T2 Rescue Heavy, copy all," John's voice was subdued but consummately professional, "Am reading your position 32 out with prelim mission briefing in 15. Verify?"

Virgil checked his proximity scanner, his GPS, then answered slowly. "Affirmative IR Station, and thanks. Please advise on T1's ETA."

"T1 declared final approach 2.6 minutes ago. Touchdown Mexico City in 4, over."

"Understood... John?" Virgil's voice lowered, he fiddled with his mike, and Alan strained to hear what came next. After a moment Virgil paused, listened without expression, and then reverted back to business. "Copy that, Station. T2 Rescue Heavy out."

T2's pilot unclipped his belts, pulled off his headset, and jerked to his feet. "Al, you've got her for a few. Have to hit the head. Gordy, toss a couple of espresso shots in my coffee?"

Gordon tucked a strand of ginger hair behind an ear and reached for a nearby cabinet. "Yep, I'm on it. Hey," He caught Virgil's arm as his brother eased around his station, hesitated, and then patted it roughly. "Thanks for letting me in on this."

Virgil glanced down, smiled briefly and moved on past, but his smile hadn't reached his smudged mahogany eyes; catching it, Gordon let his brother leave the flight deck without another word, but as soon as the cabin door shut he swiftly turned his attention to Alan and hit his intercom.

"What did he say to John? I couldn't quite catch it."

Alan unlocked his flight chair and swiveled it around. "He asked John if any of the relatives were onsite. According to the local IC, they are."

"After yesterday, maybe we should--"

"No. You know Virg, he'll work it out on his own. Scott'll keep him on his game, just like always."

"But you didn't see--"

"It's cool, Gordy. Mix him his fix and let it alone. He'll come out of it once he's working the scene."

"If you say so," Gordon muttered, returning his regard to his screens. "Weather's looking iffy, by the way. Think there's a monsoon flow coming in, bigger than the one you guys dealt with yesterday. Could be a bumpy ride getting under it, and a real mess onsite."

"Nothing we can't handle," Alan replied absently, returning to the main controls and locking his chair back in place, "'Sides, you like a lot of water. Keeps the gills open and hydrated."

Gordon chuckled under his breath. "Yeah it does," he responded quietly, making a show of studying his meteorological reads while he considered calling Scott about Virgil on the personal comm link. He thought about it hard, and then discarded the idea; Scott would instantly get where his Second's head was at and know how to handle it. That was a plus. Another plus for the day was they'd been told that the subjects of this sortie were definitely still alive when IR had launched, so it had to have a more positive outcome than yesterday's mission, right? Law of Averages...

Still, he'd better keep an eye on his big brother, just to be sure, and that was a potential problem. And another down-side? The clock had ticked way past the Golden Hour for those trapped beneath the cathedral rubble. Could the survivors hold out long enough for their rescuers to get to them?

Gordon fervently hoped for everyone's sake that they would.

_____________________________________________________________________________


	2. Chapter 2

Quick Note: It's awful to know you have a spark of creativity and you're totally blocked. It's even worse trying to overcome it. But the best thing in the world is discovering there are people who encourage and support you, even if they've never met you -- Thank you, so much, for making me feel I _can!_

Chapter Two

Three Mexico City firefighters trudged wearily away from their Incident Command Post and moved on to the Red Cross tent to grab some coffee, studiously avoiding looking back towards the collapsed structure behind them.

"He's an asshole," the pock-marked vet of the group growled to the youngest of the three, "Just another politician caught in his own tricks and looking for a scapegoat to blame it on. Now's not the time to lose your confidence."

"He's right, Miggy," said the second man bitterly as he kicked some mud from his boots and accepted a steaming mug from one of the relief workers. "Our glorious mayor wouldn't have had the balls to unload on us if the Press had been allowed in."

Miguel cupped his stiff dirt-encrusted hands around the warmth of the coffee he was offered, treasured the heat, and squared his shoulders firmly. "I'm good," he finally replied, "And just so you understand, I have nothing against International Rescue. They were great to work with yesterday, even if… But what happened today was that idiot's own fault and we could've handled it. Now it may be too late, even for International Rescue!"

The vet put a hand on Miguel's shoulder and squeezed it hard. "It's out of our hands now, but don't forget we have an election coming soon. I swear to you he's done. What happened at the Press Conference will finish him."

The second firefighter's lips twisted up into a mirthless smile. "Don't know who he was, but there was one reporter who nailed our mayor flat against the wall. If I knew that guy's name, I'd send him a bottle of our finest."

"Really? I may take you up on that." A muffled voice responded, and a figure dressed in ill-fitting firefighting gear stepped from a nearby shadow, grinned broadly, and flashed a media badge: "Ned Cook, at your service," he announced with grim satisfaction as he held up a voice-activated recorder in his other hand, "And I've got every single idiotic word that issued outta that moron's mouth.

Astonished, the three weary men gaped at the man who'd made such an amazing entrance.

"Timing's everything, no?" Ned continued in perfect Spanish, and his grin, impossibly white and impeccably cable-ready, grew even broader. "Anything else I can do to help?"

And for the first time in days, the three frustrated rescue workers relaxed, wiped the sweat and dust from their eyes, and allowed themselves the luxury of true, unabashed laughter.

________________________________________________________________________

_3/20/70, 14:37 hours, Mission 70-41, Mexico City, Day 2_

"Spook's in the hole now", Scott spoke quietly into his headset as he scanned the black and white images on his laptop. "From the data so far, structural integrity of the cellar is good on the northwest perimeter, but there's lots of loose debris."

A pop of static, and then John relied, "I'm checking the schematics now. It's an old building, circa Spanish occupation, but there was some retrofit. Any ideas on how they'll get in?

Scott picked an icon on his screen and slid it over to a control toolbar; the images on his screen abruptly changed to greenish-black as the tiny SAR 'bot he was manipulating in the ruins switched its video array to infrared. Scott studied the reads and frowned. "Station, I'm still thinking it through. How far out are they?"

"T2's crossed the coast and made her final turn," John answered, "Stealth mode's deactivated and security systems engaged. You should have a target in approximately 15. Can they get in via the sinkhole? Sorry, Virg is asking."

Scott gazed thoughtfully past his mobile control station to the visible remains of the subject of this rescue; an ancient cathedral slumping wearily into the ruptured paving stones of its old foundations, eerily illuminated in vintage World War II floodlights and backlit by an orange murky glow cast by the fires that raged all over the city. Between the reflections shimmering off standing pools of brackish flood waters and the dazzling lights on the ruins, he couldn't see the sinkhole itself but was able to make out the hazard tape encircling it and the rear of the earthmover it had swallowed.

"Tell Virg that's not an option. Sinkhole's still evolving and the ground around it's continuously destabilizing." Scott settled back in his chair, narrowed his eyes, and tapped one finger against his desk. "The Mayor and his cronies didn't have much to tell me, but I did find out there's an old open sewer running below the square."

John groaned. "I was under the impression that after the 1985 event, they fixed all that. I checked the archives, and the finances were allocated for the retrofits."

"Same ole, same ole,'" Scott snorted, "Looking around this mess, I'm thinking the cash landed somewhere else. Anyway, the sewer's a good probable for the surface failure. Method of entry isn't determined yet, but pass it on that hazmat suits are a requirement." Scott looked over the staging area, eyed four firefighters laughing and talking near the Red Cross tent, and rose to his feet. "IR Station, standby one," he said as he switched his SAR 'bot to auto-intelligence, "I'm gonna get me some real information before T2 sets down."

"Mobil Control, copy that. IR Station, standing by."

And as Scott moved towards his targets…

________________________________________________________________________

Virgil was deciding on his own method of data gathering. "_Negative_, Station, tell Base I'm doing a GPR sweep prior to landing. Will relay the reads to you for analysis. Call Scott and let him know we're coming in so he can clear the area. ETA in 2, _over_."

Silence fell. It was rare indeed for Virgil to override immediate orders but he'd done it now and no one onboard was going to argue with him.

Gordon tightened his belt and flipped switches on his boards, deliberately keeping his voice modulated and steady. "GPR standing by."

"Target acquisition 1.5 minutes," Alan added, "Mexco-International's diverted all emergency air traffic off our heading. Corridor's clear."

Tense silence again, until Gordon interrupted it. "Virg, Scott's calling in on the personal."

"Course he is," Virgil muttered, changing frequencies on his headset. "Scott, I already know what you're gonna say and—"

"Can it," Scott's voice was even and business-like, but there was an underlying tension nonetheless. "You've got a good plan and we need all the information we can get. Just don't take too long getting it. Everyone on site's cleared back and you've got an open field."

Virgil could see the floodlights now, dead center in his windows as he began to descend and decelerate. "But?"

"Look Virg, yesterday sucked, yeah, but it sucked for all of us. You don't _ever _dictate to Station or Base the way you did tonight. Is that understood?"

There was an awkward quiet so strong that even the faint voices of other air traffic in the vicinity could be heard murmuring through Alan's headset, in spite of the muffled hum of T2's engines.

"Sure it is," Virgil finally replied edgily, "But I called what I thought was right."

"And you're not the Field IC, _I_ am."

"Shit," Virgil mumbled, readjusting his mike again, "Not gonna argue that, why would I argue that? Jeez-us Scott, everyone knows you couldn't pay me enough to take that on! I don't want it, I've never wanted it, but—"

"The criticism is in how you handled the comms, not the decision you made. Next time go through the proper channels, even if you can't do it objectively." Scott's voice lowered. "Virgil, it's real dark and safe where your head's at right now, and I totally get why its there, but I need you to pull it outta your ass – _now_. CHECK?"

A muscle jumped above Virgil's jaw, Gordon fixated stoically on his meteorological instrumentation, and Alan glanced out the front windshield and fidgeted. "Hate to break up this heartwarming moment," he interjected sarcastically, "But we're closing in fast."

Virgil tossed a look at his HUDs, refocused on his controls and sighed deeply. "Check," he answered tiredly, "Scott... Sorry."

"Toss the others the apologies, not me. Just buy me a drink at _Maria's_ and make sure it's a real damn screamer, not that cheap-ass well crap you try and pass off as 10-year-old Scotch when no one's looking," Scott barked, "Okay, got a visual on you. Height looks good. You'll want to concentrate on the hole – it's marked by the spots now so you can't miss it."

"I see it," Virgil said, easing T2's nose up in slow careful increments, "Starting the run, see you in a few."

"Copy," Scott answered and cut off his personal link.

Gordon expelled the air he'd been holding and got busy arming the ground penetrating radar system,

Alan blinked, tossed down a mouthful of coffee from a self-heating thermos and checked their position. "Ten seconds out. No traffic on proximity, no power lines in path, no structural obstructions."

Virgil simply nodded sharply and held to his course.

From his vantage point on the ground, Scott watched the big ship rumble in, sideslip over the sinkhole's location and stall to a hover. As soon as T2 was in place, he signaled the men controlling the floodlights and the spots were immediately redirected back to the cathedral ruins. Then, a new sound pierced the evening air and sprays of laser tracers erupted from the leading edges of T2's wings, fanned out, and veered downwards to outline the perimeters of the gaping sinkhole for the GPR.

As the seconds ticked by, the green behemoth yawed slowly on its axis, pitching gently as it rotated 360 degrees, and then it glided on, seemingly tracing a route as it climbed slowly away and crawled forward towards the northwest.

Scott observed this and couldn't suppress the smile that momentarily lightened his dark features; no matter how down he was, it was obvious Virgil was mapping the layers of sediment below his ship. They were on the same page after all – ingress would be accomplished with the Mole from a northwest direction, and the target entry would be the one location where the cathedral cellar was at its strongest: the northwestern perimeter, the furthest point from the main collapse.

"Still can't capture it on film, can I." Ned commented sarcastically from his position behind Scott, "Another Pulitzer gone again." He crossed his arms in mock belligerence and grimaced comically.

"No dice," Scott laughed as he headed back to his control station under Thunderbird 1's wing, "All you'd get is a big fat green inkblot. We like our privacy."

"You do, I'm not arguing that, but a bribe is always on the table." There was just a trace of hope in Ned's voice, "I do keep my word occasionally."

Scott rolled his eyes and waved him off as T2 reappeared low in the southern sky, fired its powerful verticals, and settled heavily to the wet flagstone square. Seconds later the Pod Bay door lowered, the ramp slid out, and Virgil was quickly making his way towards his brother.

"John's got the reads," Virgil said as he strode towards his brother, "He's running them now. Gordon's warming up the Mole and Alan's running down the checklist. What've you got so far?"

Scott settled behind his desk and checked his own read-outs. "Spook's coming back. It didn't get any live hits on the infrared."

Virgil's jaw dropped but before he could protest Scott waved him quiet. "I know they told us there were sounds but this looks like another recovery. Until we know, we run this as a SAR. No matter what, we still have to give the family closure… Such as it is."

Virgil's eyebrows dived to his nose. "_Wait_ – What did you say?"

"Funny," Scott answered without a trace of humor, "That was my reaction when I got the real deal from the guys who know the most about it. Our subjects are two kids, two senior citizens, and two firefighters. The kids belong to the Mayor and the senior citizens are his poor relations, one uncle and one aunt… Apparently, they were brought here from the camps to illustrate the Mayor's 'connection and concern' for the common people. The firefighters that went in after them are rookies who took off on their own to assist."

Scott waved his brother to a campstool and handed him a cup of coffee. "The reason we're here is that the Mayor kicked out the Press and told the local Emergency Services they couldn't be trusted to do their job. The excuse he used was the school--"

"That son-of-a-bitch! There wasn't anything any of us could've done about that! What a fu—"

"Agreed but stow it. Before all this came down, there was a press junket called," Scott threw a glance at a cluster of Suits and security personnel standing around a VIP tent and didn't bother to hide his disgust. "Political grandstanding disguised as an after-the-disaster pep rally."

Something dangerous snapped behind Virgil's eyes. He sat up straighter, turned, and glared at the VIP tent. "So the Mayor trotted out his own kids and the relatives he doesn't give a shit about into a known danger zone _just for the friggin' publicity?"_

"Yep."

It was then that Virgil noted a smaller group of poorly-dressed people huddled off to the side, barred from the luxury of the Mayor's shelter. Even as he watched, a few brawny security men began roughly pushing them further back--

-- And Virgil was already moving when Scott caught his arm. "Ease it up, Virg," Every muscle in his brother's arm was as tight as a piano wire, "There's still a chance, a real chance, so don't go and blow it! Don't start a spot fire when the big one's still in play."

Scott yanked back hard, but suddenly Virgil's muscles went completely slack, for out of the midst of the pathetic crowd stepped a young girl with long black hair, and nestled in a colorfully woven shawl slung over her shoulders was a tiny sleeping baby. She was looking straight at Virgil through large hollow eyes, and even at that distance, he could feel the despair and fearful hope screaming from her soul.

Scott followed his brother's gaze and inwardly sighed. "Pretty, isn't she? Can't be more than 17 at the most."

Virgil nodded slowly. "Yeah. What's her story?"

"She's a widow," Scott answered, a trace of anger clouding his voice, "The senior citizens that went missing, if you write off the Mayor's family, are the only relatives she has left. Their grandson, deceased in the main shock, was her husband. They were newlyweds."

Virgil froze, stricken, and then his face crumpled. "Oh no," he whispered softly, tearing his eyes away from her and rubbing a suddenly aching temple, "What the hell's taking John so long?"

"IR Mobile Control, IR Station," a crisp voice snapped from Scott's radio.

"Speak of the devil," Scott grinned. "IR Station, go."

"T2 got some great reads," John replied instantly.

"Yeah?" Virgil sat up and brightened visibly. "That's great!"

"No it isn't," John retorted, "GPR worked because the medium it passed through has very high electrical conductivity. That means it's at hydro-saturation level. You'll be drilling into swelling clays, saline, organic matter, and water borne ash deposits with roughly 30 percent carbonate minerals, all of which were depositioned at a slow rate. Slow sedimentation rate, high water content, and carbonate cementation bonding means—"

"They'll be drilling into ground with the elasticity and consistency of wet cement." Scott finished, watching Virgil with a wary eye.

But his brother was staring over his shoulder, looking over the site, ticking down his options. "Scott," he said abruptly and jumped to his feet, "We'll never make it in time, not in the Mole! It needs the heavy blades on reduced speed to dig into that crap, and the polymer it lays down may not even hold! Do you know the guys connected with that rig?"

Virgil pointed at a Hook and Ladder parked near the command post and Scott glanced at it quickly. "Sure, nice guys," and then frowned deeply, blue eyes narrowed. "_Whyyyyy?_"

"Send Alan and Gordon down in the Mole, we'll need it for full medical, but I'm going down the hole and I'm using that rig to anchor to." He tossed another look near the VIP tent: the girl was still watching him…

Now it was Scott's turn to jump to his feet! "We've been over this! You're the Second, I'm the IC—"

"But I'm the one doin' the damn dirty work!" Virgil shouted back, "I know my way around confined spaces, I used to go mining in Colorado, remember? All my equipment is stashed in my bird, it's all been checked and it's good to go. You said it yourself; we're worn out, we've had shit-poor luck, and yeah, we've got a buddy-system in the Regs, right? But two people need to man the Mole, one ta friggin' drive the thing and the other to monitor the array feeds and keep the drill from mucking over and _stalling out_! It'll take way too much time, time we don't have! Someone ELSE needs to get down that hole NOW before it's too late for everyone buried in there, if they're even still alive!"

"Virgil—"

"Lemme go, Scott." Virgil demanded quietly, "I have to do this…"

And as Virgil continued to make his case, Scott looked into his brother's determined, haunted eyes, noted the deep grooves cutting from nose to mouth, the strain that clamped his brother's jaws as tightly as a vice, the clever artistic hands balled into stubborn fists…

"—I can't use a hov pack, the fuel's combustible and there's raw sewage in there," Virgil hammered on doggedly, "I have to use the ropes, there's no other choice, and I have to do it _now_! Give…Me…THE GO."

Behind his brother Scott could still see the girl watching them from a distance, still hoping, still hurting, her hands clasped together in desperate protective prayer over the downy head of her sleeping infant...

"Good luck," was all Scott could finally say, and with that, Virgil was gone.

It wasn't until far later in the night, in a brief moment of respite from the demands of his duty, that Scott suddenly realized his brother hadn't mentioned the Hazmat suits.

Not once.

And by then, it was way too late.

________________________________________________________________________


	3. Chapter 3

**Sorry this took awhile, I'm in the first stages of Finals (duration of hopefully meaningful suffering, 4 weeks and counting!). Thank-you, Red Hardy, for the best laugh I've had in months – you know what you did ******** and when I knew I was caught reading one of your chapters out of turn, I totally lost it at an inopportune moment, which of course, made me laugh even harder! Sam, for your amazing and wonderful support and incentive, small-but-strong, Ech'lye, and Mirvena for writing me back with the most amazing comments and coming on board with this trip, and lastly, Red Hardy did this to me so I'm gonna happily pass it on: BoomerCat, you're great, where are you? Really want to read a new one! And cip, you're driving me effing nuts: **_**What happened to Virgil in the desert?! Gees!**_

_**________________________________________________________________________**_

**Chapter Three**

_**3/20/70, 15:01 hours, Mission 70-41, Mexico City, Day 2**_

"Come on Ned, you know how we work," Scott said grimly as the two watched Virgil ease around the wedged earthmover and over the sinkhole's lip. "It has to be a sequential process or things convolute fast. In a confined space there's no such thing as a Grab and Go, unless you want to kill the subjects outright."

"That's a strong, informative statement." Ned slipped a stylist under his ill-fitting helmet and scratched intently as he read through his notes on an electronic pad. "Will you at least let me quote you on that one?"

Scott's jaw tightened before he nodded. "As Incident Commander X, yeah. With everything that's coming down now, people need to know as much as we can give them. They won't get it from anyone else, not without censorship." He watched his brother leaning back over the rim suspended on two strong ropes, and something niggled in an obscure corner of his mind, something Scott needed to remember and couldn't get a handle on...

Virgil checked his hardware one last time, flashed a thumb's up at the firefighters stationed on his belay line and anchor point, pulled a dust mask over his mouth and nose, and determinedly locked eyes with his IC.

But Scott wasn't ready to give him the go, not yet. He looked over his brother's head, scanning the staging site narrowly, feeling the mission clock ticking in his nerves as he made mental notes on securing the danger zone, fighting to recall what the hell he was supposed to... Do? Say? Enact?

Nothing. He wasn't getting a damn thing.

Discarding his unfamiliar, crawling intuition as a simple case of the spooks, Scott leveled his gaze into his brother's eyes, swiftly considered and discarded other courses of action, and finally nodded a sharp assent.

Virgil exhaled, raised a gloved hand in acknowledgement, loosened his brake bar and stepped down, quickly disappearing into the darkness below.

"Just for the record, posterity, etc, how much equipment is your man hauling in there?" Ned inquired conversationally, "Looks to be quite a load."

"Between all the packs and the tank, about 90 pounds." Scott answered offhandedly as he tapped his headset. "Mole, Mobile Control."

"Mobile Control," Alan responded, "Wireless five-by-five. Clock us rolling now."

"Clock's rolling, roger." Scott kicked at a loose cobble, jammed his boot into the soil beneath it, and frowned deeply. "Ground's saturated. Recommend you heat things up for good traction on entry."

"Clearance for plasma array confirmed. Further instructions?"

"Ah… Negative, Mole, good luck. Mobile Control, out."

Scott headed back to his station with Ned trailing behind as the Mole lumbered by on its heavy tractor. He stopped to wave at Alan and Gordon, shot a glance at the sky, and frowned deeply. "IR Station, Mobile Control," Scott dragged his mike in closer, pulled up a campstool, and focused on his computers, "Do me a favor and toss me the meteorologicals."

"Mobile Control, roger that. Sat Loop's incoming in 3, Station on standby."

"Copy."

Ned sidled up to look over Scott's shoulder. "Something wrong?" He asked brightly and was summarily pushed back. "My mistake, just checking the weather and… Nothing else. Totally nothing else. So – how is it?"

"What?"

"The, ahem, weather?"

"Nothing good to say about it," Scott looked up at the towers of cumulonimbus roiling in from the southeast. "Hope you have a raft in that media bag you're hiding under that jacket, we're gonna need it. Don't even try to look surprised, I know its there, Ned." He waved a firefighter over from the sandbagging efforts around the sinkhole. "Miggy, right?"

"Yessir," The young man replied, "Ladder Fifty-One."

"We've got some old K-rails in our equipment ship. You got a source of water to fill them up? I'm not sure the bags'll hold against a flash flood, and with a man inside we don't want that cellar filling with water."

Miggy glanced back at his company's rig. "Our tank's full, we can handle it. It'll take some weight off the anchor though."

"Not enough to make a difference, my crew chief's not that heavy. You guys have more rigs in proximity?

"We can request two – they're close and wrapping a call."

Scott grabbed Ned's arm and swung him towards T2's ramp. "Perfect. Belay the bags and I'll have the rails out ASAP. Come-on Ned, you've just joined the unofficial ranks of International Rescue."

"Won't remember a thing about it later, will I."

"Nah," Scott chuckled, "but I can guarantee you'll dig it while you're doing it.'

_**3/20/70, 15:28 hours, Mission 70-41, The Hole, Day 2**_

"Off rope!" Virgil shouted towards the top of the hole, kicking rubble aside with his steel-toed boots as he tossed his rope bag out of the way and flipped on his headlamp.

"Off rope!" Came the corresponding cries from above and Virgil's rappel line fell slack beside his red belay rope.

He pulled his mask aside, closed his eyes, and cautiously sampled the air; it was damp and close, filled with particulate matter and heavy with the scents of churned mud, tainted water vapor, molding wet wood, and… Wine?

Virgil discarded the dust mask and snapped on a self-contained respirator, swinging it's heavily insulated tank over his backpack and strapping it in place securely. "Scott, radio check?"

"Loud and clear," Scott responded, "But be advised there's volcanic ash in the substrata that may interfere later. Exact chemistries unknown but suspect magnetite."

"Comms dicey, got it." Virgil answered as he unclipped a powerful led torch from his belt and turned from his ropes, "Consider me advised and in motion."

"Negative!" Scott hammered back, "You know the drill, run your assessments."

Virgil halted mid-step, sighed, and yanked a meter from a thighpack. "Assessing now." He activated his atmosphere monitor, ran a cursory sweep, and hurriedly checked the data sets. "Simple-dust's over the line. Methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide positive but currently within limits. Lots of water vapor, it's soaked in here. You don't have to bitch, respirator's already on."

"So you're thinking straight, good. Environment?"

"You got that John Deere stable?" Virgil asked as he glanced up at the bulky earthmover tilting over the sinkhole's lip. "Don't need another dent in my hardhat."

"Ladders 64 and 72 have you covered with winches and auxiliary lines. Crane won't pull it till you're out. We don't want that sink destabilizing. Mind checking the environment now?"

"On it." Virgil swiveled where he stood and directed his Surefire's beam into the cellar ruins. Millions of dazzling, disorientating flashes scintillated back through a fine-dust mist, completely obscuring his vision.

"Dammit," Virgil muttered, methodically switching the clear lens of his torch to a red filter and redirecting its beam; the change-up, however, didn't help. He couldn't see a bloody thing. "Crap."

"That your official environmental assessment?" Scott replied dryly over his headset.

"Thermal imaging's not an option, it's too damn wet and visibility sucks. Throw in the worms, I need circulation: low volume, low pressure." Virgil took a deep breath, pulled aside his mask and shouted in Spanish: "_International Rescue, can you hear me?_"

Silence.

Another deep breath. "_This is International Rescue! We are here to help you! If you can hear me, make a sound any way you can!_"

There were a few distant odd tinkles, and then silence – Again.

The suppressed anger from yesterday's mission slammed back in spades as he called out again and got nothing but that harsh implacable silence. Infuriating, boiling rage threatened, but Virgil caught it, held it rigidly in place and clamped it down ruthlessly; the last thing he needed was more shit from Scott, and there was no way he was gonna get himself scrubbed from this one, no way in hell!

Impatiently, he reached into another thighpack and dragged out two small 'bots. "Mobile Control, I've gotta negative on sound, am cutting the ghoulies loose while I'm waiting on the worms." Virgil toggled switches on the titanium bodies and the eight-legged metallic monsters squirmed to life and scurried off into the dusty fog. "What's the Mole's status?"

"Prepping for launch."

Every muscle in Virgil's body tensed. "Holy god, Scott! Kick Alan into gear, they should've been drilling ten minutes ago!"

"If you don't hang it looser, I'll pull you out." Scott returned harshly, "Hold it together or you're done."

"I'm not doing what I did yesterday—"

"You wanna save lives, you've gotta preserve your own first! Worms coming in now. Do – Not – Move – _from your position!_"

Above Virgil's head, a large vacuum tube uncoiled and dropped through the sinkhole. Seconds later a smaller one followed on the opposite side, one as an intake, the other as an outtake. A low hum resonated through the cramped space, and then the dusty mist swirled sluggishly and began to lift.

"Confirm flow activation and current status," Scott snapped over the wireless.

Virgil ground his teeth and swept his torch over the clouds of reflective dust, but this time he was able to dimly make out some of the structural details of the cellar roofing. "Activation confirmed," he responded back, deliberately re-modulating his voice, "Visibility's approximately 20% and rising. Ceiling's apparently intact with wood beam supports – imported oak, most likely. That's probably why it held."

"Status on the ghouls?"

"Standby." Virgil pulled his wrist to his mouth, muttered a few instructions to the miniaturized computer strapped there, and read through the hard data flashing across the tiny screen—

Intense disappointment came first, quickly followed by a painful twist in his abdomen. He'd seen it before, those reads, 24 hours prior, and as the seconds ticked by and the internal atmosphere slowly cleared, he battled against the adrenaline crash he could feel coming on all too fast. "Mobil Control… No hits, no alarms."

"We expected that, Virg." Scott answered more slowly this time, taking care to convey some encouragement, "For now, just hold your position. Mole's on its way in, and remember, there's always a possibility, no matter how bad it looks."

"Possibility?" Virgil laughed bitterly, "With the week I've had already?"

But suddenly Virgil distracted as he checked his surroundings for signs of improvement; something about his own remarks had struck an unexpected, internal chord. Puzzled, he turned his thoughts inward. "Mobile Control… Visibility's slowly improving but I can't move yet..." He bit his lip, thinking harder. "Standby one."

"Mobile Control, standing by."

Virgil closed his eyes, focused, and breathed deeply the way he'd been taught to do in Osaka, Japan. What'd he just say that touched-off that bell in his head?

_With the week I've had already…_

Yes, that was it, that was the remark that'd done it…

But why?

_**3/17/70, 41.12 hours prior to Mission 70-41, The Island**_

"Honey," he kept his voice soft and pleasant, "Don't you want to talk about it?"

But the only reply Virgil's charm evoked was an oppressive stony silence. In fact, she wouldn't even look at him.

Virgil hated days like this. They'd been idle for weeks, a monotonous drone of maintenance by day and increasingly short tempers at night as everyone bounced off the walls looking for things to do. John's constant updates on the Western Pacific Rim seismicity networks squeezed the ever increasing tensions even tighter, too; somewhere under the subduction zones of the Americas, a major fault, or multiple faults, were preparing to catastrophically rupture and all they could do was watch, and wait, and prepare -- after issuing the mandatory warnings, that is.

Generally though, alerts from International Rescue were routinely held back from the public by government agencies reluctant to alarm their civilian populations, and legally, there wasn't much even a heavy-hitter like Jeff Tracy could do about it.

Crap, Virgil sighed silently as he watched his companion warily, after all we've been through and all the people we've lost, you'd think someone in authority would grow some friggin' balls and blast it all over the evening news! Huh… But that'll never happen will it? A cliché rule-of-thumb's like spitting into a hurricane when you expect the usual politician to do the right thing. Safer to suppress the warnings, and maybe even invest in a few corporate construction companies on the side. There's a profit to be made after a natural disaster, isn't there?

Yeah, actually, I think there is, and I hate the fact that I can even figure that out, dammit!

Virgil dragged his hair from his eyes, stubbornly masking his internal frustrations out of deference for the girl sitting so rigidly still at his side. He knew she was shredding herself from the inside out, was seriously doubting he could do anything about it, and he hated to see Tin-Tin so achingly unhappy.

He couldn't recall the last time he'd seen her cry.

Maybe it'd be better if she did cut it loose, just this once. Should he try and knock her over the edge for her own good?

Nope, that wasn't his job – it was Alan's.

"You guys have done this before," Virgil finally went with, "And it always comes out right in the end. It will this time, too. Just a question of moving from point A to point B, that's all."

Tin-Tin shuddered and her elegant hands, so taut with anxiety, suddenly arced into the air in a willowy gesture of fragile futility. It caught Virgil up, her movements as evocative as that of a Balinese dancer's liquid beauty, and as always, it never failed to stun, never ceased to haunt.

"It's the waiting that's frying him out, knowing the call's coming in but not when." Virgil managed at last, "Once we're in motion, he'll come around. You know he will."

Tin-Tin shook her head slowly. "But I have to go so much further than he does to fix it," she whispered, "And I'm tired, Virgil. Haven't you ever… You and Scott have those girls on the Mainland, don't either of you ever quarrel with one of them?"

Virgil lit a smoke, listening to the rhythms of the waves pounding the beach, working to cover the ironic twist from the low laugh he polished up and dragged out. "Them?" He smiled tightly, "Nope. They don't get our hard-earned cash for that sort of thing."

"You mean they're—"

"Pros, yeah," Virgil absently sketched in the sand, unwilling to face those astonished eyes. "It's a perfect deal for Scott and me. No questions, no fuss. We're preferred clients too; they drop everything when their favorite, filthy-rich jet-jockeys blow into town."

"Drop _everything_?" Tin-Tin choked delicately, an edge of hysteria in her laughter as she turned away, her large perfect eyes glittering with unshed water. "_Blow_ into town?"

"Well, yeah – no, oh no, cripes, _no!_" Virgil beat down the idiotic grin coming on and ended up with a mortified but far more suitable grimace. "Didn't mean it that way, sorry! But look at the bright side – Nothing says fun like an unintentional, _really_ bad pun. Er, ummm… Or a legitimate Freudian slip?" Virgil threw up his hands in mock despair. "No excuses, I'm usually better than that."

"Yes, you are. But I'm glad you're not tonight."

Her smile was brittle, but at least she'd found one. It'd been a bad fight this time, her and Alan's, one of their worst rows ever. She'd disappeared and it'd taken Virgil three hours before he found her huddled on one of their more obscure beaches; now that he was finally getting her to talk, he wondered how Scott was doing with Alan. Frankly, he wasn't envying either of his brothers on that score, and in fact, he figured that the further away he was from the villa, the better he was doing.

Tin-Tin glanced down at Virgil's abstract doodling and carefully added an elliptical circle to its center. "Thank you, for coming after me. I wish Alan..." Tin-Tin bit her lip. "It's hard, you know, always being the second priority. Sometimes I'm afraid…"

"We all get scared sometimes," Virgil returned quietly, studiously focusing on his drawing, "It's a byproduct of intellect and survival skills. Probably one of the reasons our species didn't go extinct after all the crap we've been through the last forty years. Too bad the politicians keep using it when elections come around. Blurs the real issues."

"I suppose it does," Tin-Tin replied wistfully, "Virgil, I'm honestly afraid that I…"

Her voice trailed off as she plucked a chip of basalt from the sand and held it so tightly it sliced her finger before she placed it carefully back where she got it. "I'm _frightened_," she started again, this time more carefully, "That I've made the wrong choices, locked away here, away from the world, away from those I could truly help. All the science, the medical, the engineering I've worked so hard to understand… And Alan won't listen to me when I begin to doubt... All this."

Her hands opened wide, the long, precisely manicured fingers sweeping graceful curving arcs across their view of the tiny intimate cove before they dug deeply into the cooling white sand and curled to fists of stifled, frustrated intensity.

Uh-oh, this is really, really bad if she's questioning the whole damn mission now, cripes! Virgil internally scrambled for a solution, found what seemed to be the perfect line of thought, and trotted it out fast "Well, I like what you did with the ghouls, even if I don't like running cadaver 'bots."

"But I knew that, and I changed the software last night! Now you can operate them like sniffer dogs, too. They'll scent for blood and human warmth as well as volatile organic compounds. I am ashamed that I could not deal with Alan as easily as that."

"Alan?" Virgil snorted, handily pulling a slim bottle of wine and two glasses from his windbreaker, "Al's my kid brother, yeah, and… But he doesn't know jack about the real world yet and even less about women. 'Specially how to handle the most intelligent woman this side of the Smithsonian." He fished a corkscrew from a pocket and made a gallant show of pulling out the cork. "No, no, hear me out— I think his basic problem's superficially common: you confuse the hell out of him, pretty much all the time. That's part of the job for you girls when it comes to us guys, right? Always keep 'em confused." Virgil poured a glass of rose-colored wine and gently cupped her hand around the elegant fluted stem. "You've done it to Scott too, you know, handled him so damn well he was baffled for weeks."

"Really," Tin-Tin held up the glass, watched the sunset through the shimmering fluid, and darted a quick look at Virgil, a weary smile tilting her saddened eyes. "And you?" She added softly, "Are you handling me now, Virgil?"

He tucked his hair behind an ear, took off his windbreaker and settled it over her shoulders with a crooked grin. "That a complaint?"

Tin-Tin shivered, sipping her wine as the sun dropped below the choppy, steel-blue sea.

"Come on, is it?" Virgil coaxed, a hint of humorous teasing warming his voice.

"How could it be?" Tin-Tin finally answered softly, "I'm glad someone cared enough to come find me in the first place." She paused, savored the wine trickling down her constricting throat, and tried to rally her sagging spirits. "It is, I suppose, the simplest things… That fix everything else, isn't it?" She brushed his arm with her long fingers, a feather's touch against his skin.

Virgil leaned back on a scarred palm, swallowed an old but familiar ache, ignored the one starting further down, and focused firmly on the waves smashing against the jagged basaltic boulders strewn over the shoreline. "Yeah," he replied gently after a moment, "Sometimes it is."

But she didn't take her hand away, and suddenly things became anything but simple.

_**3/20/70, 15:37 hours, Mission 70-41, The Hole, Day 2**_

"Virg, this isn't complicated—"

"—No, no, think I got it! Listen, the ghoulies have more than one type of sensor onboard now, Tin-Tin made sure of that, and if I can reset for—."

"Virgil, check visibility."

"Gimme a sec! Tin-Tin told me…When I went after her that day she and Al had the big one… Scott, let it go and hear me out! I'm switching the ghoulies from VOC's to warm blood, we can do that now! And if our victims are unconscious—"

"Virgil! Wake up, drop the damn ghouls_, and tell me what you see!"_

Jerked back to the present Virgil automatically straightened, swept his red-filtered beam into the black polluted air ahead of him, and froze in muted, stunned shock.

He was facing an insane shimmering nightmare, a surreal twisted vista ripped from the hellish depths of the worst of Hieronymus Bosch's sadistic fantasies!

"This is impossible," Virgil whispered, staring at the exposed ruins in horrified awe, "Windows blow out, not in. I don't understand this, I don't get this…"

"They flooded here overnight," Scott replied patiently, his transmission scratching with a low static hiss, "Chances are the water carried some of the debris loads into the hole. How bad is it?

"I, uh…" Virgil hesitated, gave himself a mental push and quickly re-centered. "The term 'some' doesn't cut it," he answered back, his voice hushed and eerily calm, "Every window that church had is probably down here with me, Scott. In a thousand pieces."

And it was true. The floor of the cellar, rippled by the seismic waves that had torn through Mexico City two days prior, was a petrified sea of two-foot high oceanic swells, and riding on their frozen crests were millions upon millions of lethally serrated stained glass shards. Even worse were the jagged, porous remnants of human bones jutting from their defiled crypts, clawing through the glass as if caught mid-flight, running from the ghastly annihilation of the nation's most famous and most cherished House of God.

Mesmerized, Virgil's arm dropped limply against one of his thigh packs. It was horrific, staggeringly deadly, compellingly otherworldly, and repellently bewitching…

"It looks like a barite mine I mapped for Geo-Tech," Virgil mumbled softly, "Back when I was in college… On a field trip near Death Valley…"

POP! Hiss! And suddenly there was an explosion of static in Virgil's headset and Scott was shouting in his ear!

"VIRGIL, TAKE COVER NOW! STATION REPORTS 8.6 INCOMING AND THIS IS THE PRIMARY! GET AWAY FROM THE RIM!"

"Sorry?"

"_GET AWAY FROM THE RIM, 8.6 INBOUND __NOW__!"_

"SHIT!" Virgil's head snapped around, his heart pounding in his ears, respiration rate doubling, adrenaline flooding his sympathetic nervous system as his perception of time smeared to a blurred, distorted crawl--

THE EARTHMOVER, HOLY _CRAP!_ Virgil sprinted ahead into Bosch's Hell, putting as much room as he could between himself, the earth mover and the sinkhole, desperately searching for shelter, a void that could withstand a complete collapse–

"_GET AWAY FROM THE HOLE, VIRGIL, DO IT!"_

"I'M TRYING!" Virgil shouted back, still running, still searching…

And then he saw it, a huge broken oak beam jutting down from the corner of one of the enormous room's outside walls! He jumped for it, dove through the stabbing needles of glass, throwing himself forward and locking his hands around the splintered wood…

He could hear it now, the raging sonic roar shearing through the very bedrock of the earth, a primal inhuman elemental fury craving release, folding the rumpled shivering land like paper as it plunged its razor-sharp talons further and further inland, tunneling remorselessly for the equilibrium it could never acquire, racing closer and closer…

Virgil ripped the Velcro from his respirator tank, swung it over one shoulder and pressed his back firmly against the adobe wall, bending his knees and balancing on the balls of his feet; the room shimmied lightly, jerked hard once—

And this, Virgil knew, was only the precursor. He took a deep breath, relaxed as many muscles as he could, and counted down the quake's arrival time through his teeth! "One thousand and one…"

Cascades of tinkling glass funneled from the tortured, trembling flagstone floor, resonating musically to the frequencies of the incoming seismic waves.

"One thousand and two…"

The rock under Virgil's boots slipped, ground together, and snapped like brittle bones as the old mortar holding them in place powdered to floury dust.

"One thousand and three…"

The din was growing louder, ever closer, and overhead, wooden beams crackled and splintered as they tried to hold the weight of the cellar roof against both nature and gravity!

"One thousand and four..."

Then high over the rising, roaring maelstrom, just before the world blew to pieces, Virgil heard the shrieks of a mortally terrified child sobbing through the tumbling, furious chaos—

And knew there was nothing he could do about it.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Well, what can I say except I'm sorry this took so long. Survived Finals, got through the flu and the walking pneumonia that followed it, and I deeply regret there was more. I know I have a standing dedication, and that will remain, but just this once I need to modify it and hope very much that it'll be a long time before I must do so again.**_

_**To the firefighters of Arlington, Washington: God bless you for your kind, compassionate hearts, and thank you for trying so very hard to make a horrific event better. To a fallen brother who left this world December 3, 2009: May you find comfort wherever you are, and I pray that next time around, your spirit will find things gentler and far, far easier. **_

Chapter Four

"_Why, Virgil? Why do __you__, without question or regard for your own safety, risk everything to save the lives of complete strangers when you won't comfort me in the way I ask you to?"_

"_Getting into my head to figure Alan out? It won't work, he feels the same way I do."_

"_Alan is nothing like you. I asked you a direct question and I deserve a direct response."_

"_We can talk about it on the way—"_

"—_of all people, YOU? Evasion? I am not asking an inappropriate question!_"

"_We can't do this, Tin-Tin, I've gotta get back to Ops!_"

"_JUST THIS ONCE, I DO NOT CARE! Why do __YOU__, __PERSONALLY__, place yourself in harm's way with the FULL KNOWLEDGE that if you don't come back, PEOPLE WHO LOVE YOU WILL BE TERRIBLY HURT!" _

"_This is my fault, I let you drink too much. I've already answered that, remember?"_

"_You haven't! You've given me lip-service, the safe answer__, the one you hide behind! __I will NOT go unless you tell me WHY YOU DO WHAT YOU DO!"_

"_SHIT, SHIT, SHIT! Alright, ALRIGHT! I DO IT because every freakin' save I get means that someone, and I don't give a rat's ass who it is, __won't__ have to go through what I did__when I lost my mother!__"_

_**3/20/70, 15:39:41 hours, Mission 70-41, The Cellar, Day 2**_

"I HEAR YOU!" Virgil shouted, "I KNOW YOU'RE THERE! I WILL COME TOYOU, I PROMISE!"

There was no reply and no matter how much he wanted one, Virgil didn't expect it—

All he could hope for was that one or two of his words got through to whatever shelter the kid had found, and that the boy had enough sense to stay put for as long as it took for Virgil to get to him.

If he _could_ get to him.

Seismic waves were ripping through the cellar, snapping stone, wood, mortar and brick like matchsticks, and the sonic roars bludgeoned Virgil's inner ears, smothering his equilibrium to a dizzying vertigo. His overextended arms strained to maintain their grip but the mangled wooden beam he hung on to was jerking hard and splintering into soggy sticks beneath his thick canvas gloves like the flaky adobe bricks crumbling behind his back—

And the waves kept coming, fiercer with every long frustrating second that passed, violently amplifying, pounding and reflecting against the curved sides of the alluvial bowl of subterranean Mexico City as if the ground itself had become the raging tumultuous seas of a Cat 5 hurricane!

"Son of a BITCH!" Virgil fought to keep his head tucked into his chest, squeezing his eyes shut against the swirling dust and increasing disorientation, battling to control both his respiration and his coordination as the slippery glass-littered floor buckled, rolled, saturated, and sunk into the liquefying ground beneath the cellar ruins…

_Ride it out,_ he admonished himself, _You know you can! Don't lock-up your legs, maintain your balance… Play your feet, shift your weight, breathe evenly and compensate! Holy God, don't let this monster pack a super-sheer!_

But even as his thoughts blurred into the shattering wood beneath his hands, the entire structure seemed to shriek in fear and then it heaved towards the ceiling, swiveled sideways, thrust violently upwards again and snapped in half, one side falling to the northeast and the other thrusting up towards the southwest!

The incredible furious force threw Virgil's right hand off the beam, knocked his right leg loose from its foothold, and almost tossed him into dead air, but he twisted his left arm tighter on the wood and threw his fallen arm back against the accelerating force, grappling the beam with every ounce of strength he had—

But the moment he'd re-established his footholds, he found a new, more desperate problem.

_God dammit! Will this ever friggin' stop?_

Virgil couldn't see it but he could feel a fissure rupturing between his feet and grimly realized that it must be racing the length of the room. Even worse, it was gushing groundwater; he could feel the cold viscous fluid running over his boots, and remembered Scott's warning about the raw sewage, in what seemed like hours ago—

-- And was probably only forty-five or so minutes prior.

_There's Hazmat Suits in the Mole… No, no, no, can't think about that, not yet! One thing at a time, one thing, I gotta get through this first!_

CRRRRAAAAAAAACK!

_Holy shit, NOW WHAT?_

Virgil pushed his torso forward, twisted his taut neck over a straining shoulder, and threw a glance up and back to figure it out—

_Jeez-us, gotta move it!_

The wall supporting his beam was going, was giving way!

_**3/20/70, 15:40:02 hours, Mission 70-41, The Mole, Day 2**_

The cabin lights flickered with each pounding jolt, and even though they were insulated from the worst of the quake's effects by a thick metal fuselage, helmets, and headsets, the rescue equipment hanging on the wall racks set up an eye-piercing screech—

And Gordon ground his teeth, trying like hell to ignore it: confined spaces without an egress evoked brutally suppressed memories, and if anyone ever found out about those flashes of recall, he'd be scrubbed from rotation for the rest of his life.

That couldn't happen. Ever.

Oblivious to his brother's discomfort, Alan calmly leafed through his checklist, ticking off items as he worked-up the Mole's main boards. "Increasing drill rotation to 90 percent, side-diggers up to 75… No, make that 80, cutters on standby, engine on idle, and we're chilling." He glanced up at the FLIR, re-checked his GPR, shook his head and added more power to the wireless. "Mobile Control, IR Mole, come back."

Static – Lots of it.

"Mobile Control, IR Mole…Damn." Alan flipped away his mike and watched his torque gauges, checking the load as he eased up the drill. Under current conditions electronic interference was expected, but still, what a drag! Mission stall-out, plain and simple.

Alan tightened his safety harnesses and settled deeper into his swaying chair. "That's pretty much it for now. We've got no eyes and no comms."

"You know, Al, this can't end as a recovery. Not after yesterday."

"Got that right. How's it hanging back there?"

"Trying to interpret the last seismo John tossed. Stress transfer reads… Weird."

"Hang it up, close your gills, and recline your chair. Gotta protect that back and neck."

"In a minute," Gordon replied distractedly, "Think upping rotation's a good idea? I mean, Scott said that Virgil said—"

"--That blah, blah, I know. Virgil's not here and we are, and if he _was_ here I'm totally sure he'd say I'm calling it right. Dropping rotation means we'd get cemented in like that old Jimmy Hoffa thing." Alan tossed another surreptitious glance at his brother, brows knit in puzzlement. "Tell me how our tunnel's doing."

Gordon powered his shuddering chair backwards, tilted his monitors, and activated the Mole's rear imaging system. "Ah… Not so good. Polymer coat's ripping and the shaft's losing integrity. Hope we don't have any criticals, we'll have to drill our way out and that'll take time. Must be really bad out there."

"Sure it is, but everyone's gone 'cept for ES and our subjects." Alan kept it cool but there was something going subtly wrong with his favorite brother; there'd been none of the usual banter, no jokes, no wry observations, and that wasn't right… Was he missing something? "It'll be good, you'll see."

But Gordon had his eyes closed and looked to be taking a quick nap.

_Seems okay. _Alan turned back to his controls, restlessly scanned his instruments again, and finally gave it up. He pulled a tiny sapphire ring from one of his pockets and smiled briefly. The rough jarring movements of the quake set the dim cabin lights dancing and flashing in the facets of the diamonds that surrounded the medium-blue stone. It was like frozen azure water edged by clear, crystalline ice. _This'll make things better, I know it will. It's perfect._

"Hey!" Gordon roused suddenly.

"Hey yourself."

"Did Virg get in before all this came down?" And for the first time since they'd mobilized, Gordon forgot about being trapped in a closed capsule under thousands of pounds of heaving soil. "If he did— "

"Crap!" Alan yanked his chair to its upright position. "Dammit! He was going in when we fired up, I know he was, and that was a long time ago!"

"We can't just stay here—"

"Hang on to your flippers, Gordo," Alan fired up the rear booster, "We may be blind as a bat but we're moving NOW, no matter what Scott says!"

_**3/20/70, 15:40:54 hours, Mission 70-41, Staging Area, Day 2**_

"Move away!" Scott shouted, gesturing frantically, "GET AWAY FROM THE TENT!"

But the girl with the baby couldn't hold her balance and she was already falling…

Scott jumped to his feet and sprinted, catching her up and pulling her aside just before a tent pole buried itself in the mud right where she'd been standing. The tent itself was collapsing, disgorging panicked public officials as fast as a bad day at the U.S. Supreme Court, and if he hadn't been on duty and wasn't intent on saving the girl, Scott would've been laughing uproariously into his sleeve; it was exactly like turning on a light in a New York City apartment and standing back as all the cockroaches made for cover!

In fact, if Virgil had been around, they'd have probably bet on which idiot would make the Incident Command Center first…

But Scott set aside his personal musings, put his arm around the girl and steadied her as he eyed the milling crowd, looking for potential injuries and quickly determining that there wasn't anything worse than the usual punctured egos. He could feel the girl shaking against his side and how cool her skin was against his hand; figuring that the Suits, as always, would take care of themselves, he coaxed her on to a safe distance over the uneven rolling ground where he could run a perfunctory visual examination.

The poorest always suffered the most in a disaster of this magnitude.

"What's your name?" Scott asked, a discrete method of checking her mental status.

"Aida," the girl gasped between sobs, tucking her shawl in tighter around her child.

One word, yes, but it was enough to tell him she was coherent and responsive, and judging by how her head turned to view the damage around them, she was oriented too.

"That's a very pretty name, comes from an opera, right?" Scott replied loudly over the din, observing her from head to foot. "Do you feel any pain?"

"No, no…" She shook her head and stumbled as an especially large wave rolled through the ground under their feet. _"Madre dios!"_

"I agree, but it'll knock off soon. Let me make sure you're okay."

At the girl's frightened nod, Scott braced her, turned her under a tilted trembling light post, and quickly assessed for injuries: skin cool and moist, pupils equal and reactive, no facial lacerations, no bruising, no thoracic tenderness, respiration shallow and rapid yes, pulse rapid too but no cardio irregularities, and no deformities to extremities…

Simple fear and emotional shock, totally understandable.

"Let's get you and your child away from these nitwits, right?"

"His name… My baby's name is Petro. And yes, I'd like to go, but not far. I can't leave without knowing…"

"We won't, not in this." Scott tucked her in close and eased her over the shaking ground, settling her on his jacket just short of his station and his bird. A few seconds later and he had a solid wool blanket tucked in around her body. "You'll stay with us while you wait for news," he continued in Spanish as soft as he could over the unholy racket of the quake. "We'll take care of you, I promise."

Silent tears rolled down her cheeks but Aida raised her chin proudly, dignity settling over her classically beautiful face like a lovely mantilla; it was like a fist in the gut to Scott, the wrench of something lost for all times, a dazzling gold and gem-encrusted image of a famous and venerated icon of the Madonna and Child…

Suddenly he fervently hoped that the famous piece of art wasn't lost in the cathedral, wasn't broken and buried forever under all that shuddering, collapsing rubble. "Aida, I need you to wait here. I'm going to get someone to sit with you."

The girl tried to smile, failed, and curved protectively over her baby, her thick dark hair spilling across her cheek to hide her fear and grief.

Fighting the movements of the quake Scott bent a knee awkwardly, lowered himself to her level, and gently tucked Aida's errant locks back behind an ear. "I know you don't believe it now, but things like this don't last forever. It'll get better, someday, with time and distance… It always does, and this'll all be just a terrible dream."

He had her undivided attention for a moment and Scott used it to tuck a fold of the blanket over her head to prevent her from losing any more body heat. "For right now, I want you to understand that you're not alone. You're stuck with us for the duration, and maybe that's a little more scary than all this shaking?" His blue eyes crinkled in an apologetic grin as he nodded in the direction of his station, and as he chucked her under the chin he finally succeeded in getting the returning smile he wanted. "Stay here and you'll be safe. I'll send someone over to watch you."

Scott scrambled quickly to his station and poked at a figure huddled beneath the shuddering camp table. "Ned."

"—and the quake won't stop!" The intrepid reporter was shouting into his recorder, "It won't release us from its mighty grasp until it's destroyed the last fragment of the great heart of this fragile historic landmark! This glorious city has been brought to its knees by the most violent act of—"

"Jeezus, NED!"

"WHAT?"

"TALKING TO YOU!" Scott snatched the recorder, turned it off, stuffed it firmly into Ned's pocket, grabbed the head of cable-ready hair and turned it so Ned could see the girl. "Need you to take care of something for me."

"Uh, really?" Ned blinked and focused on the girl. "Oh. Nice."

"Welcome back, Mr. Pulitzer. Her name is Aida, the boy is Petro. Watch 'em, keep 'em warm, and when the tremor's done, for God's sake get her some coffee and errr—"

Scott paused briefly, tossed a glance at the girl, then at the baby, and ran a fast re-think. "Forget the coffee; make that hot chocolate and something substantial to eat, ASAP. Red Cross should have something, and if they don't, one of the Companies will."

And as fast as that Scott was running again, this time towards the firefighters bracing on their rigs at the sinkhole rim—

He had to be sure that the hole wasn't collapsing further, had to be certain the rappel ropes were intact and the worms still functioning, and most importantly, had to be absolutely one-hundred percent convinced that the bulldozer's support lines were holding fast!

Somewhere beneath all that shit his brother was fighting for his life, and Scott was gonna give him as much of a chance as he could.

_**3/20/70, 15:41:09 hours, Mission 70-41, The Cellar, Day 2**_

_If I don't live the kid won't either!_

Virgil shimmied down the length of the beam, feeling blindly ahead with each step, making sure of each foothold before swinging his weight to that side—

_Go with the waves, just like at home, and don't stop, don't stop!_

He blocked out the thundering crashes of the quake, meticulously working forward, lower and lower on the beam, deeper into the ruins and further from the wall, each step methodically tested, each hand-over-hand locked in before he strived for another difficult inch of clearance…

He was gonna make it!

After what seemed an eternity, the seismic waves were decaying to a more circular motion now, one he could predict with increasing accuracy. Even as the bricks popped from the wall behind him, Virgil was gaining both distance and time from the immediate danger that collapse would mean.

_All I need is a little more room!_

He kept moving, kept reaching,

And then he was on his knees at the base of the beam!

Virgil yanked out his Surefire and determinedly crawled on; he could hear the worms again over the grinding rolls of the earth, still working, and growing more confident he paused, punched a few controls on his wrist computer, leaned against a pile of rubble and watched the shuddering reads as closely as he could.

In the darkness ahead of him, two metallic balls uncurled, sprouted sectioned cubical bodies and mechanical legs, and resumed scurrying through the rubble, this time searching for the scents of human blood and sweat—

_No cadavers this time! Get me to my target alive, that's ALL I freakin' ask!_

Virgil took another moment to check the condition of the ceiling; surprisingly, most of it still seemed intact but he knew there was always a danger.

_Aftershocks. They'll be coming soon._

He kept on crawling, slipping and sliding ever deeper into the ruins, instinctively heading in the direction he thought the boy's scream had come from. With every hard-won foot, he was getting closer and closer. Did the kid survive?

"CAN YOU HEAR ME?" Virgil called into the dark, "THIS IS INTERNATIONAL RESCUE, IF YOU CAN HEAR ME MAKE SOME NOISE ANY WAY YOU CAN!"

Silence.

_Not happening, not this time!_

Virgil moved faster, ignoring the glass shards cutting into his thick uniform. "THIS IS INTERNATIONAL RESCUE, TALK TO ME!"

Again there was no response, but that didn't mean the kid was gone!

Virgil kept going, even faster than before, working his way around the jagged debris piles, keeping his head low, feeling ahead with his gloved hands…

Then, a miracle.

First, one of the 'bots emitted a shrill pinging.

Then, as Virgil halted to check the Ghoul's location...

"Over here."

The muffled voice came from somewhere front and left to Virgil's position. "I HEAR YOU! SAY AGAIN SO I CAN GET YOUR LOCATION!"

"Here, we're here…"

_Thank God! _Virgil whipped his Surefire in that direction. "CAN YOU SEE MY LIGHT?"

"No… Yes, I see it…sort of."

"GOOD! DON'T MOVE, I'm coming!"

Following the powerful beams of his lights, one watchful eye on the ceiling, Virgil shimmied back and forth with the diminishing rolls of the quake, sliding over glass, ducking under beams, squeezing between broken furnishings, and jimmying his way over the huge muddy crack in the shattered floor beneath his legs.

_Least the damn thing's stopped squeezing out waste, for now, anyway. Gotta watch it during the aftershock sequence, even if the epicenter's far back on the coast._

He moved closer to the inner wall of the cellar, called again, and got another response. Another few long moments and he came upon one of his formerly detested 'bots, busily chirping and clicking its titanium claws against a piece of dusty torn leather jutting from beneath a broad oaken… paneling? Bookshelf?!

_What the hell?_

Virgil ducked in closer and slowly played his light over the rubble. "Hey, I'm here." This time he carefully re-modulated his voice lower, knowing full well that a shout might startle his patients so much it could exacerbate their existing conditions further; the unfortunate truth was that many saves relaxed their grip on life the moment they realized that rescue was imminent, and Virgil didn't want his subjects adding to the statistic, not for anything in the world! "This is International Rescue, can you hear me?"

"Yeah. Glad… You could make it to the party," the weak voice returned hoarsely, "Was running… Out of stories…to tell Salvador. Jokes ran out… A long time ago."

"I'll bet." Filled with relief, Virgil grinned broadly and started checking site conditions. "You've gotta be one of the firefighters."

"How'd you know?"

"Attitude's everything, bro. Gimme a minute to secure things and I'll be in. Have any idea what you're under in there?"

"It's some kind of rack…or something." The muffled voice gasped, and followed it with a coughing laugh. "The Inquisition… was a big business around here…once."

"You're kidding."

"No… No shit. We're under… a torture machine… It was hanging… From the wall… It fell over… Saw it at the last minute. Gave us room to… Survive. I call it… my off-the-wall save." The voice rasped another laugh that ended in a choked cough. "Funny, no?"

"Gallows humor, just my style." Virgil smiled, "What's your name?"

"Jorge Francisco Martinez Lopez… Ladder 51… 26 years old… Allergy…penicillin. No…prior medical history. Real freaky… under here."

"Spooky yeah, but the damn thing worked." Virgil returned, quickly setting up a halogen flood, "How're you feeling?"

"My back… Think I've gotta C-spine…at the least. Right leg numb, feels like someone's sprinkling…water on it. But I can move it. Neck stiff… some pain."

_Uh-oh. _"How'd you…" Virgil asked, swiftly assessing the large oaken structure from floor to ceiling, calculating its length and the stability of the angles involved, looking for any lethal flaws that could present a danger to himself and his subjects. "Get down here?"

"Kid…started to slide in. Grabbed him. He rode me… Down the hole."

"Great improv, but I'll bet you're banged up. How's he doing?"

"Took off…his clothes. Wet. Put him…in my jacket. Keeping him warm, on my chest. He's got...comminuted fracture, right ankle. From when we hit. Lacerations, contusions. Can't feel carotid pulse… respiration seems okay, but… He's out of it."

"Damn," Virgil whispered. His Surefire flashed over and around the rack: large piles of debris at it's base guaranteed that the thing wouldn't slide forward and drop on the occupants under it; a collapse on the far side would keep it from moving any further to the northeast, in spite of the rupture he could dimly make out beyond; the southwest entrance where he crouched though, as well as the ceiling above it, needed reinforcement fast, especially before the Mole arrived, as the vibrations it would cause had to be compensated for immediately. Speaking of…

Virgil whipped his wrist system to his mouth. "Mole, Initial Response, do you copy?" He shoved his wireless in tighter to his ear and held his breath. _Maybe the EM effects aren't cleared out yet. _"Mole, Initial Response, you read me?"

A blast of static…

"Mole, Initial Response—"

"Initial Response, Mole!" Alan's voice whooped into his ear, "Nice hearing from ya buddy! How's it hanging in there?"

Had the situation been any easier Virgil would've laughed, but all things considered, "What's your ETA?"

"Three minutes tops! Now that I'm getting good reads again, maybe more like 1.5."

Virgil grabbed a deep breath of O2 and pulled his mike in closer. "Copy that but call it before entry. You still coming in on my coordinates?" Virgil looked over his shoulder at the northwest corner: intact, yeah, but strange – the blueprints John had passed down to Scott hadn't revealed how big this room really was, and that portion particularly was stronger than he'd figured when he checked the structure's building elements before coming in.

"You got a bad situation in there?" Alan asked, voice lowering to a more sober tone.

"Just some renovations prior to entry. She's a big girl and I don't want any more surprises, over."

"IR copy that, slowing it up. Advise on status."

"Copy all and out." Virgil flipped the mike out of his way and ducked down into the pocket. He still couldn't make out his subjects, there was too much in the way. "Jorge," Virgil called into the void, "You still with me?"

"Yeah," Jorge replied, but this time his voice was sleepy, setting off warning bells in Virgil's head. "Nowhere else…to go."

"You've got the training, you know you've gotta stay awake. Talk to me while I stabilize this crap."

"Trying… Have you… Found Ricket? Sorry… His real name's... Ricardo."

"That your friend?" Virgil asked as he yanked a metallic rod from his backpack, "The other firefighter?" Quickly he brushed loose debris from a small patch of crumpled floor and angled the rod carefully. Studying the ceiling above one more time he found a good beam, made a few minor adjustments in his angles, and thumbed a blinking button.

"Same company," Jorge was saying, "Cousin. Crazy man."

"Tell me what makes him so crazy," Virgil responded evenly, steadying the rod and concentrating on his aim. A soft hum resonated through the metal and a needle-sharp screw sprouted from the base, spinning fast, telescoping down and piercing the patch Virgil had cleared, diving deeply into the soil beneath. Around the rotating stem, thinner flexible metal spars arced from the whirling unit, flowered into grapples, rotated towards the floor and dug deeply in to form a perfect, stabilizing anchor. Virgil checked its position with his Surefire. "Your cousin, I mean."

"Hard to…think. Nothing scares… Ricket. Not after… the Strike… in Peru."

"Yeah, that was bad, we worked it too." Virgil paused, searched for a way to distract his subject from an unpleasant topic, found it. "Whaddo you guys do on your down-time, anyway? Heard the night-life around here's damn interesting."

Now Virgil toggled another switch: there was a muffled detonation and the top of the rod blasted a whirling titanium auger past Virgil's head and into his chosen overhead target, biting deeply into the beam and drilling into the rock beyond it. The auger locked tight and six flexible wires sprung from its central plate, spidered hair-thin guidance lasers across the uneven ceiling, and with a low hiss, the wires spooled out sheets of fine metal mesh that fanned into a circular umbrella, hooked precisely together, and molded cleanly to the damaged roof over the southwest entrance of the void.

"She'll be pissed."

"Who?" Virgil asked, inspecting his roof support and turning back to the entrance. "Talk to me, Jorge."

"Wife. Married… I'm married."

Virgil bit his lip, pulled out a smaller rod and eyed the void's entrance carefully; Jorge was talking, yeah, but he was starting to ramble from one subject to the next. Not good, the shoring had to go faster!

"Nope, she'll be glad to see you," Virgil said aloud, quickly aligning the second rod just inside the pocket's door. "After all this, you know she will."

"May…be."

"Stay with me, Jorge," Virgil activated the mechanism, "Almost done."

The second rod locked in quickly, anchored into the floor and screwed into the thick wood above. Virgil flashed his beam down its length, and satisfied with the results, ducked his head inside the dark space. "Jorge!"

"Still…here."

"Close your eyes, I'm pulling out the loose ends and the light'll be too bright for you."

Virgil set a small halogen lamp just inside the entrance and began pulling out the bits and pieces of rubble he found, ensuring first that none were bearing the weight of the structure above their heads.

"Do you feel anything penetrating your body or the kid's?"

It took a moment for Jorge to respond. "There is...nothing big. Maybe...glass."

His weakness drove Virgil ever faster, grabbing debris and tossing it out faster and faster as he dug deeper in. Finally, after too many seconds had passed, he was staring into the pocket itself…

And squinting up at him from the shredded floor, perfectly supine against the interior wall, a firefighter grinned weakly as he held onto an unconscious child wrapped in his thick, flame-resistant coat.

"_Hola." _Jorge wheezed, managing a shaky, ironic wave—

And then he lost consciousness.


End file.
